Following the bouncing ball in decades of a sport
Print Edition
Table tennis is a sport long associated with China. For many years, it was the nation’s only major sport. Its popularity flourished in Minhang even before the district merged with Shanghai County in 1992 to take on its present status.
The earliest record of ping pong in the district dates back to 1952, when the “Shanghai County Annals” recorded major victories by local players in a competition, according to Zhu Ling, a Qibao native and retired library curator, now in his 70s.
An avid ping pong fan, Zhu published the book “The History of Ping Pong in Qibao Town” in 2010, after extensive research in archives and interviews with local residents involved with the sport’s evolution.
Citing the “Shanghai County Annals,” he said the majority of mainlanders played ping pong in the 1960s and 70s. The sport remained popular even during the cultural revolution (1966-76), when organized competitions were banned.
In 1961, the national ping pong team of Mongolia visited Minhang in the first recorded visit of a foreign national team to the district. The Mongolians were beaten in an exhibition game.
Minhang government officials were also taken up with the sport. Matches with other government jurisdictions have been held since 1995. In that year, the district held a summer camp for elementary students to improve their sport abilities.
The ancient town of Qibao has long been somewhat of an incubator for ping pong stars.
Zhu recalls a time when there wasn’t much other recreation around.
“Whenever there was a ping pong match, everybody came to watch,” he said. “Players were like heroes to children.”
Emulating their champions, children of poor means made their own ping pong paddles from foam and played on old tables riven with cracks. Sometimes a bamboo pole or a row of bricks served as a net.
A simple ping pong ball was viewed as precious in those days. The prevailing rule was that the winner could save his ball and use his defeated opponent’s.
Yang Ruihua, ping pong champion of Shanghai in 1955, said he used an inflated chicken gizzard as a ping pong ball when he was a kid.
Ever since 1928, middle and elementary schools in Shanghai have held two to three physical education classes a week, and table tennis was always among the top activities.
Mingqiang Elementary School has used the game as a way of cultivating new generations of talented players.
In 1973, a team from the school won the Shanghai County Sports Meeting. Trained in a little church that leaked whenever it rained, the players performed so well that it was a springboard to even greater things.
In 1976, school headmaster Ren Mingqiu halted classes for day to stage a ping pong competition where teachers worked referees and students not playing served as cheerleaders.
Determined to develop the sport, the Education Bureau of what was then Shanghai County appropriated funds to build a ping pong room at the school.
Zhu worked as a trainer at the school, beginning in 1976.
“I didn’t call off the training during the Spring Festival holiday, and the whole team showed up on the doorstep,” said Zhu. “We spent the morning on training as usual and the rest of the day on sharing snacks to celebrate the festival. I wasn’t paid at the time. It was all done out of passion. The children’s love of the sport touched and encouraged me.”
He recalled a student named Shi Xiaowen, who joined the school team in first grade and used a small toilet seat as a ping pong paddle.
“These students still invite me to dinner each year and we remember the old days together,” Zhu said. “Some of their children also became my students.”
When Zhu was serving in the army in 1977, he said he received parcels from his students containing medals and certificates they won in competitions. He said they thought he deserved them more than they did.
A system was established to spot potential ping pong talent in kindergarten and then nurture the players through high school. Qibao spent 3 million yuan (US$448,000) rebuilding a stadium after Mingqiang Elementary School moved to its new campus in 1994 to provide a better environment for the training.
Former national player Wang Liqin, who was ranked No. 1 by the International Table Tennis Federation for 25 consecutive months and holds 14 world championships, wrote inscriptions for the new stadium.
Other mainland and foreign stars, including Zhuang Zedong, Fukuhara Ai, Deng Yaping, Jan-Ove Waldner, Jörgen Persson and Gabor Gergely have visited the school and played friendlies with students. Pan Qi, former coach of the Shanghai ping pong team, joined the faculty as a coach.
Some parents have worried that too much focus on the sport hinders their children’s academic progress and ability to gain admission to a good secondary school.
“They fear that daily training comes before school work, and they point out that there is so much talent to compete with across China,” said Zhu. “I know we need to address this concern.”
Wenlai Secondary School and Qibao High School have agreed to ease admission criteria for students who are exceptionally good at ping pong. That gives some parents incentive to allow children to continue training.
Beyond all that, table tennis finds itself competing against other sports like basketball and distractions like video games among young people. Though China still has more players than any other country, Zhu said the popularity of the sport has definitely waned since his childhood.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
